Confession's Confection
by scullyseviltwin
Summary: They loved, they lost... two years down the road in California, can they find it again? GSR


Thanks Lauren and Marlou (beta)... This is a response to a challenge from Carmen/Marlou/Morgan/Sara...

* * *

The sand was warm there, underneath her legs. She took another swig of her Corona and settled it back in the sand. All she could taste was lime and she loved it. The setting sun was toying with the lines on her face, making her look more relaxed than she actually felt.

In reality, she was overcome by nervousness-would he show up?

The invitation she'd extended had been a spur of the moment thing. She was taking some time off, willingly. All she had planned to do was get a hotel room somewhere and sit on the beach, attempt to remember how miniscule she was in the scheme of things. It would do her good.

But the previous week, in a fit of loneliness and love, she picked up her phone and dialed him, nearly begging him to come and see her. They'd talked in the past two years, but they hadn't seen each other.

"I do believe that's illegal," he pointed out as he sat on the sand next to her. It took her several moments to overcome her shock: he'd actually shown up. In shorts, no less. Sara tipped the beer to him in a gesture of greeting and took a swig.

She looked different. Tan, gorgeous, open and ready. But then again, she was always ready. He was the one who had never been truly ready, truly there.

Sara gulped once more and looked to him. "Didn't think you'd actually come." Handing him a fresh bottle from the store beside her, she sat back and rested on her palms, regarding him coolly. There was no need to lie now, no need to hide anything. But there was no reason to divulge everything either. If he asked, she'd tell him the truth.. but he didn't ask her. Not yet.

Grissom looked at her for a moment before popping his beer and taking a swig. "I had to," he explained as she handed him a wedge of lime, gesturing to her own bottle to show him what to do. He already knew, he wasn't that socially inept, and it stunned him to find that she thought him that. "You asked me to."

Sara leaned over, took the beer from him and placing her thumb over the opening, tipped the beer upside down and gulped from it. She gave it back to him and stared out at the ocean. "That's it? Just because I asked?"

He nodded and stared out at the ocean himself. Grissom glanced at her feet, dug solidly into the sand, the top of her tattoo peeking out just above the earth. The things he'd loved discovering about her, the time he'd taken... the best hours of his life, really.

"Yeah well, I asked you for a lot of things..."

Grissom pushed his glasses further up onto the bridge of his nose and smoothed over his beard. "This was easy though."

Sara smiled sardonically, even laughed a bit. "Right, easy."

The beer was a nice distraction for her hands, since she was sure that if she wasn't holding the bottle, she would have been fidgeting. "I thought about this a lot." Their eyes met for a moment. " A lot, a lot… I think it's uh, maybe driven me a little insane."

"I became insane with long intervals of horrible sanity," he quoted, knowing that she would understand the exact meaning of his words. She hated that she always understood his veiled quotes, she hated it. They knew each other too well.

She wanted to reach over and touch him so badly, but she didn't. Now wasn't the time. "I think it's what's kept me grounded these past years, thinking of you."

Grissom nodded, understanding exactly what she was saying. He gulped his beer and anchored his eyes on the horizon. His voice had a cool breeze when he spoke. "You left."

"You made me leave," Sara said immediately, neither maliciously nor uncaring; she simply stared at the sun sinking down on the horizon. "It was never about me Griss, ever. "It was true, she had given him all the time in the world to come around, do to fully avail himself emotionally.

It was months before she realized that it would never happen. Sara had indeed promised to never leave him, because he had asked her to. But he never opened up to her, he never even really tried. He let her have his body, his mind, his soul, but never his heart. When she realized it, she began to close down, just because there was nothing else she could do. And he, well, in true Grissom fashion, he shut down completely, both personally and at work.

It was easier to leave than she had thought it would be.

So she went and headed up to the lab at San Diego and nothing changed. She went on loving him, he went on loving her... they were just further away. It didn't solve anything, but it sure as shit didn't make anything worse.

"I tried Sara."

Sara laughed at him, but leaned into his side nonetheless. "You didn't try, Gil." She finished off her beer and grabbed another one. "The prospect of being open with me scared you even more than just being with me."

Looking down at the top of her head, he couldn't help but grin. There she was, calling him on his shit behavior. So he kissed the top of her head and they stayed that way until the sun had disappeared, allowing the sky to fall into a cool violet hue.

He wondered if she tasted the same after all this time. He wondered if she sounded, felt, smelled the same. As much as he didn't wish to face it, he needed her. He needed to feel her on him again. Thoughts of her were the only thing that kept him alive.

Two years ago he would have spread her across the bed and taken her slowly. Grissom was assaulted with the memory from a particularly hot day-she wanted ice cream. He ignorantly came home that evening with a tub of vanilla ice cream, whipped cream, fudge and maraschino cherries. She'd kissed him and led him to the bedroom, his purchases in tow. She'd laid out for him and he'd created a hot fudge sundae right there on her stomach. He plucked the cherry from her navel and they made love on her sheets, amongst the whipped cream and chocolate sauce.

The stain never came out of the comforter, but she still had it, a sad reminder. She'd never tell him, though.

"Let's go get some food," She prompted, not having eaten since that morning and finding that the beer had made her just a tad tipsy.

They ate and somehow, somehow they found their way back to his hotel room. Something about getting something from his suitcase, but he never made it there. They delved into 'them' in the elevator and the issue followed them as they walked into his room.

"This is so pathetic. I love you." His hands were out in front of him, a gesture of complete hopelessness.

Sara smiled at his attempt to redeem himself. "Just because we love each other doesn't mean things are meant to work out." It was crazy, the way she kissed him then, deep and so, so slow. It made her want to believe him. Her took her around the waist, wanting to stop, to stop it all because he didn't want to feel again, not if it meant having to untangle from her in the morning.

His hands didn't comply with what his brain wanted and he led her back to his hotel, up to his room and undressed her. They trailed over her skin the way she had longed for them to those past two years and brought back memories of the ecstasy they could bring her to. Yes, oh yes she missed those hands. And those lips. Dear god she missed his heart.

They found themselves not in the bed, but in the shower. Of all the things they had tried, they hadn't tried this and Grissom wasn't sure what to do. Neither was Sara. So, he took the shampoo in hand and lathered up her hair. It smelled of strawberries and mangos and she wasn't sure if she liked it or not but she let him continue to massage her scalp. It felt fantastic, but she wanted more. She needed more.

They kissed and kissed and kissed and loved each other until the water ran cold and fell into bed, limbs hanging off the edges, hair matted to the pillows. Sometime in the night his hand found its way into hers and they slept like that for three hours before disengaging.

Sara padded from the bathroom, hair plastered to one side of her head, wiping sleep from her eyes. She hadn't bothered dressing yet, he noted. She'd just pulled on his boxers and a shirt from his suitcase and went about her business.

She didn't notice that he was awake, so he took particular pleasure in watching her putter about the room. When he realized the boxers she'd put on, the Wile E. Coyote ones that had 'Got Gravity' printed on the rear, he had to laugh.

Whipping her head around, she was assaulted with sleepy Grissom. It made her heart clench; god damn, she missed this. This waking up with him, going to bed with him. It made her wonder why she ever left. 'Because he wouldn't open up,' she reminded herself even as she crawled across the bed, kissing him deeply.

He wanted to make love to her on the beach. He wanted to lay her in the sand and feel it in her hair. He wanted to make love to her in the ocean. A few kisses later, they acknowledged the fact that they had to get up, and get dressed.

They strolled along the shore, not hand in hand, but next to each other and talked about everything. Everything but about themselves. The stores drew their attention when the sun began to beat down on the shore. He wanted to buy her jewelry, that gorgeous necklace he saw, but she wouldn't understand the sentiment; he wasn't sure that he would either.

That evening, they made love on the floor, neither having the patience to make it all the way to the bed. He bruised her lips he kissed her so hard and she was sure that someone would report them, she was being so loud. She collapsed in tears on top of him and they literally had to drag themselves to bed.

He wrapped his large body around her small one, breathing into her hair. She still smelled like strawberries and mangos. Grissom gripped her tighter and buried his nose into her neck. No, he wasn't going to do this again, he wasn't going to let her go. No.

"Please come back, please. I promise, I promise I'll-"

His arms were wrapped around her midsection, his lips pressed into her hair. "Promises are just words, Gil." Sara licked her lips and listened to his breath even out.

But early that morning she fell asleep, wondering how she would leave the ocean behind and learn to love the desert once more.


End file.
